


Space Quidditch

by zombiegardener



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Crack, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Hope, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Shallura if you squint, Stress, altean cinema, altean sporting events, bad day, because i love coran, despair to hope, i should make altean cinema a series, klance, mostly - Freeform, not kidding about the crack, not quite the fluff i was reaching for, space quidditch debates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 01:44:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9298721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiegardener/pseuds/zombiegardener
Summary: After an easy mission goes horribly wrong, Keith is feeling restless and is searching for something. He just doesn't know what until he finds it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So the first two weeks of 2017 have totally sucked for me. I mean, really. It's ridiculous. I'm done. So I wanted fluff. However, because this is my life, a lot of my favorite fics-in-progress have posted new bits this week that completely emotionally eviscerated me (which is my new favorite phrase, because yay alliteration!). Not all- some were quite happy- but I wanted fluff. Or smut. Or possibly both at the same time.
> 
> That being said, this is neither of those things, because I found when writing this that maybe I didn't REALLY want fluff- because believe me, I tried- and writing smut is stressful. At least for me. So I wrote this instead. It starts dark and a bit angsty and then veers apparently into total crack. I have no idea what that says about my state of mind. 
> 
> It's also almost entirely unproofread, so fair warning.
> 
> Spoiler alert: Altean sporting events are even less comprehensible than [Altean cinema](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8309239).

Today had been one of the worst days of Keith’s life, and he had a long list of bad days on which to bestow that honor.

He closed his eyes and let the hot water from the shower pour over his skin, desperately trying to not draw parallels to pouring rain turning red-tinted soil into rivulets that ran like blood as if the landscape itself was painting a hellish portrait of their failure.

It should have been an easy mission. The intel suggested that it was a simple in-and-out on a planet with a small Galra base. Just a chance to strike a small blow while they were in the sector. They didn’t even expect allies out of this mission. The planet- Keith wasn’t sure whether he hadn’t known its name or whether he’d blocked it from his memory- didn’t have important resources or skills or anything else that would inspire a major fight. Instead, it had the misfortune of being a good stop for a refuel/resupply base on an established supply chain route. The populace was enslaved to grow crops and supply food for the Galra Empire, but they’d been a feudalistic farming society before the Galra came according to the castle records. There had been no distress signals. No cries for help. No signs of a sudden urging toward an uprising from an otherwise relatively quiet and docile populace. Nothing to hint at what they found when they landed.

Nothing to explain why a society with a relatively compliant and almost pacifist history stretching well over 10,000 years had suddenly decided they’d had enough.

It had all been over when they’d landed. The plains is front of the base were filled with the bodies of the dead, both Galra and the locals. The base had been destroyed, although they couldn’t figure out how because they hadn’t found any weapons capable of that level of destruction. They couldn’t even gather intel about the supply routes because the driving rain had fried the exposed systems.

Keith wasn’t sure he’d ever felt that helpless.

They didn’t stay long, both because there wasn’t anything left to stay for and because surely the destruction would have alerted the Galra. They knew nothing about the people of the planet. Their records were so rudimentary that even Coran didn’t know if they had funeral rites, and Coran knew (or at least pretended to know) virtually everything. There was too much standing water for any sort of burial, especially a mass grave, and even Red couldn’t make the wet landscape burn. So in the end they’d just left.

They hadn’t talked on the flight back to the castle, and they’d scattered as soon as they hit the hangers. Everyone had looked as haunted as Keith felt. He’d stood with Red for a long time, feeling the castle’s crystals lock in as Allura prepared to jump them somewhere- anywhere- else. He thought about training, but for maybe the first time since he’d become a paladin he couldn’t summon enough interest to move.

So here he was in the shower, still with no idea what to do with himself. He couldn’t face the thought of eating, and he could feel the walls closing in on him just from entertaining the idea of retreating to his room. He wanted something. Hell, he was almost yearning for something, so much so that his skin felt too tight and breathing was almost painful even under the hot steam. He just had no idea what that something might be.

Cursing under his breath, he slammed his hand against the control panel to shut the water off and grabbed a towel from the rack. Everything just seemed so pointless. None of this was their fault. Objectively he knew that. But how many times were they going to see this? How many times were they going to be too late? How much of this could they all take before they became beaten down and jaded? Before it all became too much?

He almost desperately tried to hold on to the anger simmering beneath the surface because the rage might at least give him an outlet but even that slipped through his fingers, leaving the frustration and restless and that indefinable longing in its wake.

Feeling an unfamiliar rising tide of hopelessness, he pulled on his clothes and set off through the echoing corridors of the castle with no clear destination in mind. 

He might have wandered for hours if the voices hadn’t drawn him. Light was streaming from the room they’d claimed as their own into the dim corridor. The words were indistinct and sounded a bit forced even from this distance, but that didn’t matter. Suddenly he very much wanted to not be alone. Still, a lifetime of practice made him pause in the doorway before committing.

Hunk was sprawled in one of the chairs and appeared to be arguing- or passionately debating, according to Lance’s voice in his head- about something with Lance. The blue paladin was seated in the middle of one of the couches, knees pulled up to his chest and arms wrapped loosely around them in a posture that almost screamed ‘deflecting’. They had something on the video screen, which was apparently the source of the argument (‘passionate debate’).

Keith closed his eyes for a moment, letting the argument wash over him as the tightness in his chest eased just the tiniest amount. That feeling was enough to finally propel him into the room. He stepped over Pidge, who was on the floor in front of Lance’s couch with whatever her current project was spread out in front of her but hadn’t been visible from the doorway, and dropped down between Lance and Pidge.

Lance glanced at him with a smile that was too tight to be natural but at least was an effort. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Keith dropped his head back against the cushions and finally really looked at the video screen. He was expecting a movie- or the Altean equivalent thereof- or one of the soap opera-type things that Lance and Hunk were addicted to despite the fact that neither of them had the slightest idea what was happening at any given moment. Which, admittedly, wasn’t all that far off from Earth soap operas, so who was he to judge? Instead, what was playing was…chaos. Really. There wasn’t any other word for it.

“Is this…?” The question died off as Keith tilted his head to the side, hoping that the change in angle would bring clarity. Or possibly sanity. Maybe both. The screen was showing what seemed to be a soccer pitch filled with people. And walking fish? And possibly a water hazard, which maybe explained why his brain was calling the things that could be riding animals some type “fish” when the description really didn’t work. And some people might be flying? The tilting didn’t work, so he shook his head and glanced at Lance, who was now watching him with something close to real amusement. “I give up. What the hell are we watching?”

“Space quidditch, man. Obviously.”

Keith blinked, but Pidge snorted in disgust at his feet before he had to come up with an answer. “It’s not space anything, Lance. It’s on Altea.”

The corners of Lance’s mouth turned up in the beginning of a real smile as he turned back to the screen. “Semantics, but fine. Altean quidditch.” The smile grew a bit, becoming almost gleeful. “This is totally a ten thousand year old Altean quidditch match and you can’t convince me otherwise.”

Pidge stopped working and gestured at the screen. “No, it’s not. There’s no snitch. It can’t be quidditch without a snitch.”

“How would you know? The snitch is tiny. There could totally be a snitch. The people on broomsticks are obviously chasing something.”

“Will you stop?” Hunk gestured at the screen with a bit more passion, voice rising in volume. Keith guessed this was the argument that had been filtering out into the hallway. “Those are NOT broomsticks. Why would they be broomsticks? Besides, they’re more levitating than flying.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

The room was quiet for a minute, but Lance had never been capable of letting anything go. “I still think it’s quidditch.”

Hunk snorted back a laugh. “Give it up, man. It’s obviously some sort of Australian rules football/rubgy/cricket/water polo hybrid thing.”

“That would explain the water hazard.” 

Keith didn’t realize he’d said that out loud until Lance glanced sideways at him with a mock glare. “You too? But what about the flying, Keith?”

Keith leaned more comfortably against the cushions and gestured at the game/match/thing/whatever and shot for a bad imitation of Lance’s petulant tone. “But what about the water and the fish things, Lance?”

“It was 10,000 years ago on a different planet. Obviously differences are allowed!”

Hunk groaned and dropped his face into his hands. "Lance, I swear to God if you don't stop I'm divorcing you and I get custody of Pidge."

"Damn straight," Pidge chimed in, most of her attention still on her project.

"Geez guys, feeling the love." Despite the sarcasm dripping from his voice and the expression of overly dramatic wounded pride, Keith noticed that Lance had dropped his legs to the floor and was sprawled back against the cushions in a posture that was a bit more Lance-like. 

They settled like that, half watching the screen and half letting their minds wander. Lance and Pidge started to give the players names and backstories, while Hunk and Keith started to make up rules, each one more outrageous than the last.

The conversations started to run together until Pidge started to slander (Lance’s word) Cedric Snodgrass of the northern Snodgrass line (who apparently made their fortune in smuggling but then turned respectable despite their long-standing feud with the Highbottom family) for his use of excessive force and fouling (by their rules) of Pidge’s current favorite player. Lance went overly dramatic again and flopped over onto Keith’s lap, one hand over his heart and the other accusingly pointing at Pidge, who was actually laughing at his antics. Keith rolled his eyes but then gave in to a sudden impulse to find out if Lance’s hair was as soft as it looked. He figured he could play if off as a toll for the use of his lap for his death throes due to Pidge’s betrayal. Or something. Honestly, everything about this conversation was too ridiculous to try to insert logic now. Lance shot him a quick look of surprise as Keith started to pet his hair, but he swung his legs over the arm of the couch and stayed in Keith’s lap, so apparently it was okay. Which was good, because Lance’s hair was as soft as it looked and the short strands felt good in his fingers. Almost soothing in a way he didn’t look at too closely.

They were still like that half an hour later. Hunk had given up on rules and was now trying to enforce the ones they’d made up like an armchair referee. They’d all long since approved the cricket hybrid theory because the match showed no signs of ending, possibly ever. Keith was arguing with Pidge and Lance about how many teams were actually involved (Lance insisted two with no logical explanation, Pidge claimed three, but Keith was sure there were five and that maybe the fish-not-fish things counted as a separate team, so he was willing to argue for six). Keith was just finishing making an argument in favor of his ‘the fish-not-fish things are obviously plotting to overthrow the flying-or-maybe-levitating people’ theory when he glanced up and saw Shiro and Allura leaning on the couch behind them.

Allura’s expression was somewhere between confused and horrified, but that was a look they were used to seeing on her face whenever she was forced to watch anything Altean with the rest of them. Shiro was just looking amused. Even the stress lines on his face had eased a bit, suggesting that they’d been listening for long enough to justify Allura’s horror.

Shiro tore his eyes from the screen to glance at the rest of them, his expression slowly turning almost gleeful in a way that would surprise most people who didn’t know him well. “Do I even want to know what’s happening?”

That question launched the four of them back into the quidditch/cricket/hybrid sport debate. Lance and Pidge argued over each other and Hunk started explaining random rules in a voice that was way too serious for the subject matter until Shiro gave in and doubled up laughing, possibly at the lost look on Allura’s face.

She gestured at the screen with a helplessness born of knowing her paladins weren’t going to listen but still driven by the need to try and protect her heritage. “No. No, this is gantazanel. It’s a championship game, I think, but I didn’t watch it much. The quatrzel there is led by Tilan, I think.”

Keith moved to slap a hand over Lance’s mouth, but he wasn’t quick enough. “Wait, no. That’s Cedric Snodgrass.”

Shiro leaned against the couch, eyes back on the screen. “Why Cedric?”

“Because quidditch, Shiro!”

“Right. Stupid question.” He paused, and Keith raised a threatening finger in his direction. 

 

“I’m never going to forgive you if your next words are ‘why Snodgrass’, because you know there are no good answers to that question.”

“Keith! How dare you slander the ancient Snodgrass family!”

“They’re smugglers, Lance. They deserve to be slandered.”

“No, wait. What?”

Shiro patted Allura’s arm in a ‘let it go’ sort of gesture, but his eyes were still on the screen. “Okay, so Cedric Snodgrass”- a slight snort of laughter might have escaped him at the name, but otherwise he managed to look like he was taking them seriously- “is doing what, exactly?”

“He’s trying to team up with Link Highbottom,” Keith told him, gesturing at whatever was happening. “Obviously.”

“Link?”

Keith ignored Lance’s tone and pointed at the screen. “Link. He’s even wearing a green hat.”

“Yeah, you so don’t get to make fun of my epic naming skills anymore.”

“Link is a perfectly good name!”

Shiro cut them off by making a considering sort of noise. “Right. Link. So why are they teaming up? They’re on opposite…teams?” His voice rose on the last word as though he couldn’t quite apply it to what was happening. Keith was 100% behind that sentiment.

“Because they’re secretly working together even though their families are feuding to try to find the artifact that was stolen centuries ago.” Lance was doing the dramatic gesture thing again, but Keith barely noticed because he’d long ago decided to just go with it, so he nodded in agreement. 

“Yeah. They’ve been meeting in secret and coming up with a plan, and this was the perfect opportunity.”

“Of course!” Hunk chimed in, leaning forward to look more closely, which probably didn’t help. “The… championship?” He stopped and glanced at Allura for confirmation, who sighed and waved a hand in a gesture that indicated either agreement or surrender. “Right. No one would be able to track them during the championship. So they could find the artifact and…”

His voice trailed off, but Lance picked the thread back up as if they’d already worked this out. “…and repair the rift between the families. So they can both stop hiding what they feel from them. Or something.” He glanced up and met Keith’s eyes and froze, his face suffusing with pink. Keith felt an answering flush spread across his own cheeks as Lance suddenly propelled himself up into a sitting position, nearly kicking Pidge in the head in the process. Keith blinked and met Hunk’s gaze, who was watching them with a knowing smirk. Lance ignored his best friend and settled back into the cushion, still close enough that their shoulders were brushing.

“Wait.” Pidge was waving a hand containing a tool at all of them, either oblivious to or ignoring the sudden subtext. “Did you guys just turn the great Snodgrass-Highbottom feud from the Hatfield and McCoys into Romeo and Juliet?”

Shiro had his gaze turned towards the ceiling, but his shoulders were shaking with barely suppressed laughter. “They so did. With a bit of Legend of Zelda thrown in.”

They were saved from further embarrassment by the arrival of Coran. “Hello, paladins! What’s got you so riled up? Oh, gantazanel! Why, I remember this match! The Strundels beat the Wisits and the Tremandees in the last minute. Very exciting!”

Pidge suddenly sat up, all of her attention on Coran and her expression triumphant. “Wait, does that mean that there’s three teams playing?”

“Well, now that’s a little complicated. You see…”

Keith met Shiro’s eyes with a smile as Coran leaned against the back of the couch between Hunk and Lance and started a long-winded discourse on the merits of gantazanel. Hunk, Pidge, and Lance egged him on with random questions until they finally got the reaction they were apparently shooting for when they started making arguments about how smuggling was obviously the financial backing for the entire sport. Keith stopped listening very closely when Lance shifted to lean back against him, probably to see Coran better. The contact sent a wave of warmth through him that melted away the last of the tension. He shifted slightly closer in response, letting one hand drop down onto Lance’s thigh and just barely resisting the impulse to wrap an arm around his waist. Pidge leaned back until she was resting against his out-stretched out legs, and even that felt right, somehow. Part of him wondered at the feeling, which should have been alien. He was almost never comfortable with people touching him, but apparently along the way they’d somehow developed this level of closeness and trust without him really noticing.

The why wasn’t important, he decided as he glanced around the room. Allura was leaning slightly into Shiro, who was totally contributing to the smuggling funding argument with abandon despite having come to it late. The princess was watching Coran with a fond expression as the older man gestured wildly and his eyes sparkled with excitement. Hunk was laughing outright, his face split into a wide grin, and Pidge was injecting snarky comments from the floor, still pointing with her tool to make her points, but she was smiling as well and still leaning against Keith.

Lance suddenly glanced back over his shoulder in response to something Keith hadn’t heard, blue eyes shining with laughter. His grin turned into a real smile as their eyes met, and Keith relaxed further into the couch as he smiled back. He wanted to be here, he realized. This, no matter how ridiculous and chaotic and noisy, was what he’d been looking for when he’d left the shower, even if he hadn’t know it at the time. It was reassuring and a reminder, even if it was a gentle one, that he wasn’t alone. This was why they fought. For each other, yes, but also so others could have moments like this. People like this. He didn’t have the labels to explain why it was important, but that didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was that this moment was perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know. I feel like I should apologize again, so I'm going to go find fluff to read and pretend I'm working. On a happy note, that apparently did make me feel a bit better, so yay?


End file.
